


Bringing You Home

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: My Something [1]
Category: Stitchers (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, camsten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-07 22:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4280517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cameron wouldn't wake up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 8/5/2015 update - Fic has been edited to reflect what we learned in 1x10 about how Kirsten got her temporal dysplasia. I didn't carry over anything else - this is an alternate, less horrible timeline - but as the event is in the past it still would have been the same.

Cameron wouldn’t wake up.

At this point, there was no medical reason for it. The defuse traumatic brain swelling that had caused the doctors such concern in the immediate aftermath of the accident had disappeared, and scan after scan had failed to find any signs of brain damage that might keep him from regaining consciousness.

Kirsten had read all of the reports, studying them with the same obsessive thoroughness she devoted to any area she considered worth researching.  As far as she had been able to determine, the doctors had missed nothing.

But Cameron still wouldn’t wake up.

Everyone told her that she needed to give it time. They said it had been 11 days, as if that wasn’t a significant enough number to be concerned with. As if, to someone with temporal dysplasia, it wasn’t the same thing as an eternity.

She told people grief was an easy thing for her, that it was like Ed had "always been dead," but the reality was hardly that simple. When you had a photographic memory and temporal dysplasia, every memory felt like "now." She had to choose which memories to focus on and which to ignore – which "now" she was going to live in – and she'd had long practice at pretending Ed wasn't a part of her life.

The thought of returning to a life that didn't have Cameron in it, however, wasn't something she was willing to contemplate.

So she changed the focus of her research. Whatever was going on in the upper levels of the Stitchers program was put to the side temporarily, along with Ed’s murder, while Kirsten took an in-depth look at stitching and what her father had done wrong when he'd tried to stitch her mother. She wasn't worried about herself, but she couldn't risk Cameron dying the same way her mother had.  

She wished, more than once, that she could talk to Ed about this. But it was probably best that he wasn't around to try and stop her.

Three days later, she had a plan.

000

“Absolutely not. I'm not about to let you try something completely untested when you're emotionally compromised like this.”

Kirsten's hands tightened, but she kept anything from showing on her face. As much as she hated the refusal, the confirmation that Maggie didn't know about her father's attempt was important. “It’s in the best interests of the program. Whatever you’re planning, you can’t move forward without Cameron here.”

Maggie gave her a measured look. “Actually, we can.” She pulled a folder out of her desk, pushing it at Kirsten. “Thomas Rogers. We’ve been putting him through a crash course of the Stitching technology, and he’s picked it up quickly. After a few weeks, we should be ready to restart the program with him in Cameron’s position.”

Something fierce and hot erupted in Kirsten’s chest, and a familiar voice echoed in her head. _It’s called anger, Stretch. And I think you’ve got a hell of a lot more of it in you than you like to admit to yourself._

Not entirely trusting her hands, she kept her gaze locked with Maggie’s instead of picking up the folder. “He’ll never be as good as Cameron.”

Maggie took the folder back, tossing it into the drawer she’d taken it from. “I know,” she said finally. “But it’s out of my hands.”

That … was surprising. Not the lack of control, but the fact that Maggie had admitted it out loud. “I take it they expect me to go in with Rogers?”

Maggie leaned back in her chair. “If you want to keep your job.”

Picking up something in her voice, Kirsten studied the older woman. “You mean if I still want to be allowed regular access to the lab.”

Maggie’s expression didn’t change. “That’s another way of phrasing it.”

Which was as close to a confirmation as she would ever get. Kirsten settled back against her seat, breathing past the sharp, desperate thing inside her chest. She wondered if her father had felt the same thing, when he'd first come up with the idea. “The longer he’s in a coma, the less chance he has of recovering fully.”

Maggie was silent for a moment before she spoke. “I know.”

Kirsten’s hand tightened again. “But they don’t care.”

Maggie just watched her. “No.”

Kirsten pushed herself to her feet. “Then I’ll find something they do care about.”

000

She made sure she was there when Rogers arrived the next day, watching him work from a distance. Seeing him standing in Cameron’s spot was … wrong, but she needed to watch for signs of him slipping up.

She heard Camille come up next to her. “Woah, who are you trying to light on fire with your— who the _hell_ is that?”

Kirsten’s lips twitched upward in satisfaction at the sudden anger in Camille’s voice. “They think they’re bringing in a replacement for Cameron.”

“Oh _hell_ no.” Camille took a step forward. “If they think we’re going to sit here and just _let_ —“

Kirsten stopped her with a hand on her arm. “No. I need you and Linus to both still have access to the lab.”

“You can’t be—“ Then Camille stopped, the indignation disappearing all at once as understanding filled her eyes. “Ohhhhhhh.” She nodded her head. “Right. Valuable, well-behaved employee right here. I’ll let Linus know.” 

Kirsten moved her hand away, appalled to realize that it was trembling slightly. _Just breathe._ She felt the memory of hands on her shoulders, just as they’d been in the immediate aftermath of that stitch. _It’s okay. I’ve got you. Just breathe through it._

She turned to look back at Roger, but for a second all she could see was Cameron standing right where he belonged. He looked up at her, flashing a grin.

She closed her eyes.

“Kirsten?” Camille’s question was soft, accompanied by a careful touch on the shoulder. “Hey. Is everything okay?”

_Why do people always ask if you’re okay when they know you’re not?_

In. Out. In. Out.

She hadn’t wanted this. She’d known from the very first stitch that she hadn’t wanted this.

But the only other option was letting him go.

In. Out. In. Out.

Kirsten understood her father far better than she'd ever expected to.

“I’m fine.”


	2. Chapter 2

Just over 24 hours later, she had her way in. It seemed oddly fitting that she suspected Cameron had been the one to give it to her.  

They were doing sample run-throughs of the individual protocols when Rogers' brow suddenly furrowed and he leaned forward over the screen. An alarm sounded, and Rogers' typing speed increased as his expression grew more and more frantic. Kirsten and Camille looked at each other as Linus stood frozen by his console, clearly torn between his desire to protect the tech and letting the interloper sink on his own.

Maggie stormed out of her office. "What's going on?" When Roger didn't say anything, all of his attention still on the screen in front of him, she turned to Linus. "Tell me. Now."

Linus hurried over, his much faster fingers replacing Rogers. The neurologist staggered backwards, still looking lost. "Navigation just ... collapsed." He looked up at Maggie, making a sweeping gesture towards the various screens. "I was walking through the system, just like I have dozens of other times in the test framework you made me, but halfway through the system suddenly ... it just seized."

Maggie stormed down the stairs, her expression like stone, but Kirsten's attention was all on Linus. He'd always been terrible at hiding his emotions, and his face had started out as the expected mixture of determination and confusion. During Rogers' explanation, though, his eyes had widened as he'd typed a few more keys. He'd gone still, an emotion flashing across his face – grief? pride? – then he blanked out his expression completely.  He pressed two more keys, then pushed the chair back and took a deep breath.

Maggie went over to him, arms folded across her chest. "That doesn't look like you fixed it."

"I can't without Cameron." He gestured to the screen. "This idiot created a feedback loop that overwhelmed the system and initiated a chain collapse that froze navigation completely. I rebooted the program and stopped the chain collapse, but even if we can get it stabilized it's pointless without Cameron here to help me re-map."

Maggie's gaze flicked over to Kirsten, then re-focused on Linus. "Rogers can help you do it."

Linus raised an eyebrow. "First, I'm not sure you should be trusting the guy who broke the thing—"

"I didn't break it!"

"—Two, you know as well as I do this isn't basic neurology. I'm not sure Rogers even _could_ do it. Three," he turned back to the screen, bringing up another image on the larger screens. Then he hit a button, and it started seizing up again. "Touching the system at all immediately restarts the cascade. In 24 hours it'll have fried navigation completely, and odds are it'll move on and start demolishing another part of the program."

Maggie's eyes attempted to burn holes in Linus's head. "How. Did. This. Happen?"

 Linus didn't even flinch. Nothing she'd ever seen from him would have led her to believe he was capable of staring Maggie down like that, and the fact that he was managing it for this made Kirsten's throat tighten. "I have no idea. Ask Rogers."

Rogers threw his hands up in the air. "This isn't my fault!"

Maggie's jaw tightened as she whipped around to glare at Rogers, and by the time she turned back around Kirsten had already stepped forward. "Think this is something they'll care about?"

 The older woman actually blinked at that, then her eyes narrowed. "You won't be able to move through his brain without navigation."

 "I've read Cameron's notes." They had been part of her earlier research, and she used them now to put a plan together on the fly. "The corpses need navigation because they can no longer generate the energy to move between the different parts of their brains. The computer uses a similar technique to mimic that from the outside, but with Cam's brain the energy will already be there. I'll follow the routes his unconscious brain is already using."

She didn't seem mollified."Blind?"

Kirsten didn't have science backing her up on this part, but if anything she was even more certain. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She knew her own mind, and she knew Cameron's. She wouldn't make the mistakes her father made.

"Cameron will be there." Kirsten lifted a shoulder at Maggie's raised eyebrow. "He'll guide me."

It was a far weaker argument, but for some reason it was enough to make an oddly resigned look cross the older woman's face. "We're already losing enough. Management might not want to risk the loss of another asset."

"Well, there's no way I'm going in without Cameron." She shot Rogers a dismissive look. "So if you don't get Cameron back, you're out another asset anyway. It's probably more efficient for them if I end up in my own coma rather than just quit – then they won't have to worry about me talking to anyone."

Her jaw tightened again. "Fine. I'll make some calls, get Cameron from the hospital." She looked at everyone. "Start the prep."

Kirsten just nodded, trying very hard to ignore the hope bubbling up in her chest.

000

The second Maggie closed the door behind her, Kirsten dragged Linus all the way upstairs and outside the restaurant. Camille was only a few steps behind them, looking extremely confused, but the fact that Linus _didn't_ confirmed every suspicion she had.

When they were far enough away and in what was likely a blind corner, Kirsten let him go. "It was Cameron, wasn't it?"

Before he could answer, she heard Camille's footsteps. "Hey, I'm all for secret meetings, but—"

Kirsten cut her off. "Everything that happens in the lab is filmed. And I don't want anyone in there to know that Cameron's the one who sabotaged the system."

Linus held up his hands in a cease-and-desist gesture. "Technically, it was me, or at least my idea. Cam got me really drunk one night after all the secret government shit started happening, and asked me if there was a way to make sure they could never send you in without him." He ran a hand through his hair. "I gave him theory, but the man isn't a programmer. I have no idea how he actually pulled it off."

Kirsten pressed her lips together, her eyes stinging. _You asshole. Your worrying is going to make it harder for me to save you._

_I told you, Sunshine. It's my job to keep you safe._

"While I admit that's pretty badass, it may have run us into a problem." She turned to Linus. "Can we get Kirsten safely through 1) a living guy's head and 2) without getting her hopelessly lost in there? Not only is the map out of commission, but any way to actually drive her through the memories."

Kirsten started walking, not wanting to give either of them too much time to study her expression. She'd never been more relieved that she'd never told either of them about how she'd gotten her temporal dysplasia. "I went diving into my own memories without any trouble."

"I wouldn't call it—"

She waved Linus to silence. "Not any more trouble than usual, and in this case the machine is much better made. I'll have to navigate a different set of brainwaves with Cameron, but the fact that he's a presence in there will only help me in the long run."

"Because you think he can guide you." Camille said, voice a little too careful even as she hurried to follow. "As much as I love big romantic gestures, I'm not sure that's—"

Her chest constricted. "It's not a romantic gesture," she said shortly, her throat raw. "I just ... I know Cameron. Worse case scenario, I'll put myself in enough danger that he'll come find me."

_You're determined to give me a heart attack before I'm 30, aren't you?_

_What, is that any worse than dropping into a coma and leaving me behind?_

Before they stepped back into the restaurant, Camille stopped her with a hand on her arm. "FYI, risking your life to save a guy because you're going crazy without him is the very definition of a romantic gesture. You should probably keep that in mind when we miraculously manage to save the day again."  Then, with a friendly pat, Camille went inside.

Taking a deep breath, Kirsten followed. She would worry about that after she got Cameron back.


	3. Chapter 3

Kirsten was there when they brought Cameron in, as still and silent as he'd been every day she'd gone to visit him in the hospital. It hadn't helped - he was so rarely quiet in her memories - but it was what Cameron would have done if their places had been switched. Besides, she'd hated the thought of him being there all alone.

She was climbing into the tank as they slid him into position, readjusting the temperature so it wasn't the freezer they needed for... that they normally needed. She hesitated a moment to watch him go in, then looked down next to the tank to see the flickering image of Cameron looking up at her with a serious expression. _Ready?_

"More than ready," she murmured, laying back into position.

"The entry sequence will be the same, but after that you're on your own," Rogers said, uselessly repeating information she'd already been aware of. "I'll try to aim you blind the best that I can, but I can't even be sure where you'll land."

"I'll be fine." She let the annoyance come through, keeping the desperation locked as deeply inside herself as she could. "Just send me in."

"Hey." This was from Camille. "Don't die in there. Cam's going to be really annoyed with all of us if he wakes up and you don't."

Kirsten thought of her mother, who she still didn't really remember, then forcibly pushed it aside. "Don't worry." She kept her voice light. "I'll be here to protect you."

There was a familiar surge of images and sensations, all too fast to make out individually but oddly familiar enough that the barrage was almost a comfort. When it coalesced, she was sitting in a car next to Cameron. He looked harried, like he did sometimes when he was late or trying to think about too many things at once, and she suddenly realized what memory she'd been dropped in.

Kirsten turned to look out the passenger's side window. The black SUV had been left behind after the accident, but there had been no license plates and no sign of the other driver. Fisher had opened a case, but so far they hadn't been able to find anything.

There was only a second to stare at the driver about to slam into the side of the car, capturing the image of his face in as much detail as she could. She barely noticed her hand reaching back towards Cam as the crash came, exploding the memory a wash of pain and rocketing her into another memory.

When the next memory solidified, she was in a limo. A middle-aged couple dressed in expensive clothing was sitting across from her, both of them having intense conversations into their respective cell phones.  Next to her, a 10-year-old Cameron, wearing a suit and a slightly crooked bow tie, slumped against the side of the limo. He was gazing out the window, knuckle tapping rhythmically against the glass. It was Morse Code for "help."

"Where are you?" That was Rogers' voice, somehow more grating in here than it was before. "Report in, Miss Clark."

"Inside Cameron's head," Kirsten snapped, curling her fingers back before she could touch the younger Cameron's hand. The boy in front of her was years too far gone for comfort, and this wasn't the way she wanted to learn Cameron's secrets. "Now shut up and let me work."

"Miss Clark—"

"There's nothing you can do from out there, so keeping you informed is nothing more than a waste of time. If I need a filter, I'll ask Linus."

Unfortunately, she was wasting time as well. She couldn't get a sense of Cameron's active consciousness here, which meant she needed to move on to another—

There was a screech of tires, then another crash splintered this memory as well. When the world solidified again she was in a hospital room, with the younger Cameron sleeping in the bed surrounded by a variety of monitors.

Near his bed, two nurses were whispering to each other.  "His father went home today, and his mother is still taking meetings in her room, but neither of them ever come by to see him. The poor boy had _heart surgery._ "

"I'm sure you're exaggerating. Maybe they were down here when you weren't."

The other nurse shook her head. "There's a whole group of us who have been keeping an eye on him. He's such a sweet boy, but it's like his parents forgot he was even here...."

Kirsten's chest caught as she saw Cameron's fingers curl in the blanket, making it clear he wasn't as asleep as the women thought. He'd said it was a car accident, when he'd finally told her about the scar. He'd also said he hadn't brought it up because it didn't want it to seem like he was comparing it to the accident that she'd been told had killed her mother.

Clearly, there were other reasons he'd been avoiding the memory.

Letting herself give in to the impulse – she knew what it was like to be abandoned – Kirsten brushed her fingers over his cheek. Suddenly, memory flashed again, and she was in the bedroom of Cameron's current apartment. She was tucked in under the blanket, wearing the clothes she had after her first stitch, and shimmering as brightly as anything she’d ever seen in a person’s memories.

Cameron was lying on top of the blanket just like he'd told her he had, watching her with a soft expression that made her eyes sting.  “You’re going to be so much trouble,” he murmured, brushing his fingertips lightly against the curve of her cheek.

She caught her hand before it could reach out towards him, throat tight as she curled her fingers back into a fist. That was when the realization hit her – she was in a memory association chain. The connection between the two car crashes was an obvious one, and the jump to the hospital made sense because of the effects of the crash. But the next jump should have logically been to another memory in a hospital, or another time his parents had failed him. Both were much stronger, more logical memory associations.

Except for the cheek touch. That was the inciting incident that had tossed her into this memory, which meant that his brain had recognized an action that hadn’t been a part of the original memory and used it to make a connection. Given that it had jumped to a memory prominently featuring her, it had likely also recognized the person performing the action.

Cameron knew she was here.


	4. Chapter 4

Cameron had sensed her presence in his mind, and evidence suggested he recognized who she was.

Now she just had to figure out how to communicate with him. As with all of the sciences, the simplest solution was the one that should be tried first. "Cameron?"

Linus's voice in her ear, full of barely restrained excitement. "Did you find him?"

"No." Kirsten tried to keep her voice kind, annoyed at herself for forgetting that she had company. "Simply running an experiment."

So vocalizing was out. She tried a mental shout, or at least as close as she could approximate, which should work in theory since they were on a purely mental realm. Images flashed by her, brief shots of an older man in a wheelchair concentrating on something. X-men. The character had telepathy, and she and Cameron had gotten into a debate over whether it was biologically impossible that had proven to be far more entertaining than the movie.

"So we're making jokes now?" She said the words under her breath, knowing even that wouldn't be enough if she needed to really talk to him. There was too much she didn’t want anyone but Cameron to hear.

"Kirsten?" Linus again. "We didn't hear that. Did you need something?"

"Still experimenting." She focused only on her mental projection, concentrating on speaking only through that rather than her physical body. "Can you hear me now?" When she got no response, she tried again. "Linus?"

Only silence answered her. Good.

So she tried again. "Cameron, I know you can sense me, which means you have to be aware that I'm inside your head. I'm stitching you."

Kirsten was flashed back into his bedroom, except this time he was alone in the bed. It looked like a perfectly average morning on the surface, Cameron's face mashed into the pillow and long limbs sprawled out.

She looked around, shaking her head. "I don't know what you're trying to tell me." The scene blurred, just a little, and when it sharpened again there the washed-out images of pink elephants were dancing around his head in a circle. She narrowed her eyes. "That's not exactly helpful."

Then a song started playing faintly in the background, and she remembered the time the babysitter had tried to get her to watch a Disney movie. "'Pink Elephants' was about hallucinations, not dreams," she muttered, then raised her voice again. "You're not dreaming, Cameron, and the longer I'm in here the more sorry you'll end up being later. There's probably more risk of residual emotion with active neurons, so if I'm ridiculously protective of you once we wake up you'll still technically be the one to blame."

The memory changed at that, shifting to a very expensive-looking dining room and an older woman sitting on one end. She was wearing a uniform and an apron that suggested house staff, and was sniffling like she had a cold.

When the kitchen door opened, a much younger Cameron walked out carefully balancing a bowl of some kind of soup. He set it down in front of the woman, looking up at her with an anxious expression. “It’s leftover from a dinner party Mom and Dad had last night. It’s not chicken noodle, but there is chicken in it. So that should still help your cold.”

The older woman smiled at him affectionately. “I’m sure it’s good, sweetheart, but I can eat in the kitchen.”

“No.” Cameron pulled a spoon out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Mom said important people eat in here, and you’re important.”

Watching, Kirsten wiped her fingers across suddenly wet cheeks. In the memory, the older woman looked briefly heartbroken before controlling her expression again. “That’s why you’re trying so hard to take care of me, isn’t it?” she asked softly.

Cameron’s nod was fierce. “Yes. Taking care of people is how you show them you love—“

The memory abruptly disappeared while the boy was in midsentence, snapping her back to what appeared to be an average day in the lab. Kirsten blinked, feeling disoriented. “I don’t understand what just happened. Are you the one that knocked me out of that memory? Because there was no—“

She stopped, feeling the air leave her imaginary lungs.

_Taking care of people is how you show them you love them._

In her ear, she heard distant voices. “Her heart rate’s spiking.”

“Kirsten?” Camille again. “I know you’re busy, but you’ve really got to tell us if something’s going wrong.”

Not trusting her voice, she raised her hand in a thumbs up sign.

“Her heart rate is slowing again. Nowhere near normal, but it’s getting there.”

“Fair enough. Onward, brave knight.”

Kirsten dropped the hand, making herself take a few deep breaths.  “You need to wake up.” Her mental voice cracked, and she cleared her throat and tried again. “There was a car accident, and you were in a coma. The doctors say there’s nothing wrong with your brain, which means that it’s your conscious that needs to make the decision. And you need to make it _right now_.” 

Memories blurred by her too fast to pick up details, but she could pick out the crash, the lab, and a couple of other familiar settings. Then it snapped back into his bedroom, back to what looked like an average morning of him still in bed.

Anger flared. “ _Listen_ to me. You’re not dreaming. You are in a _coma_ , and if you stay here too long your brain will degrade and you'll _die_. I'm inside your head, stitching you, trying to get you to _wake up_."

There was a rumble, almost like an earthquake, and Kirsten’s eyes flew open. The memory had changed to the two of them discovering what had really happened to her and her mother. It then shifted to Cam, Linus and Kirsten racing through Zuber’s building, panic on all of their faces as they hurried to find her.

Kirsten raised her voice on a mixture of anger and hope. “Yes, that's right, I'm doing exactly the same thing my father did, only this time I'm trying it with broken tech. You sabotaged the system somehow so that no one else could use it if you weren’t there. I couldn’t even be in here if you were a corpse, but I knew your conscious would compensate for the lack.”

She’d trusted that he would be here. She’d trusted him.

“Maggie still didn’t want to send me into a dying system, but management presumably realized that waking you up again was the only chance they had to save their precious program. If they hadn’t, I would have snuck back into the lab in the middle of the night and stitched you anyway, without any backup other than Camille and Linus. No medical monitoring, nothing—“

The memory around her disappeared with a snap, but the only thing that replaced it was a huge white room that appeared to stretch out to infinity on all sides. There was no way this could be a memory – was she somehow experiencing his imagination? – but any interest in theorizing vanished when she noticed someone coming toward her from a great distance.

When she realized it was Cameron, every line of his posture making it clear how furious he was, she started running towards him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't wait.

"I am unconscious for _five_ minutes, and you immediately rush headlong into something that you _knew_ could get you _killed_?" Cameron shouted, not bothering to wait until they'd actually reached each other.

"Five minutes?" she snapped, just as angry. "Try just over _two weeks_.  If you stay under much longer than this, you know full well that your chances of a full recovery go down dramatically."

"What about your chances if the cascade doesn't work like Linus predicted and the machine oh, I don't know, _fries your brain_? Temporal dysplasia is far from the worst thing that can happen to you!" Cameron came to a stop, his hands still gesturing wildly to emphasize his point. "I sabotaged the tech _specifically_ to make sure they couldn't send you in without me or someone else I trusted at the wheel!"

"If you had just _woken up_ , I wouldn't have needed to!" She jabbed a finger into his chest, her surprise only registering after she made contact with something solid. "I'm not supposed to be able to do that."

The anger blanked out temporarily, brow furrowing in thought. He wrapped a hand around hers, the surprise registering. "Okay, that's unexpected." He let go temporarily, then took her hand again, theories spinning behind his eyes. "It could be that, as projections, we're both operating on the same frequency, or maybe we're convincing ourselves that we're touching each other so the neurons are firing like they—" He stopped himself, narrowing his eyes at her again. "Don't distract me from the fact that you're trying to get yourself killed."

"To wake you up from a potentially fatal coma." She kept her gaze locked with his, her hand now resting completely against his chest. His fingers were still wrapped around hers, and if she concentrated she swore she could feel the echo of an imaginary heartbeat underneath her hand. "I sent myself in, this time, and I knew all of the risks. Sabotaged machine or not, I'd do it again."

Cameron flinched, letting go of her to pace away and then back again. Kirsten rubbed at her suddenly cold hand, then dropped it back to her side when Cameron didn't seem capable of forming words. "What? You're allowed to protect me, but I'm not allowed to protect you? You can't tell me you wouldn't do exactly the same thing if our positions were reversed."

"I—" He stopped himself. "Okay, fine. If not this, then something probably equally dangerous or likely to get me thrown into whichever secret prison the NSA prefers at the moment."  He let out a breath. "But that's my job. This isn't yours."

The words stung. "No. Your 'job' is to make sure I navigate a stitch successfully, not follow me through active crime scenes on the off chance you can save me from getting shot." Her chest constricted, something hot burning in her throat. "But you do it anyway, because you know I don't think of things like that and you want to try and take care of me." His expression was transforming as she spoke, moving into something that looked almost like horror, but she couldn't make herself stop. "Because you said it yourself –  taking care of people is how you show them you—"

"Stop. Please." The utter defeat in his voice forced her lips closed as Cameron pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "I cannot _believe_ I showed you one of those memories. Apparently, I have absolutely _zero_ sense of emotional self-preservation."

She needed to tell him that it was okay, that she'd rather have him fussing over her than anyone else in the world. That if he were to walk through her memories, his image would be shimmering like starlight.

But she'd never had the words for things like that. "Cameron...."

"I think we can skip this part." He held his hands up in a cease-and-desist gesture. "The 'it's not you, it's me' speech is really not the kind of thing I need right now to psych myself up for this whole 'returning to consciousness' thing."

Relief swamped her, chasing away everything else. "Really?"

" _If_ I can do it, which is a big maybe. I'm can't alter my own brainwaves from in here, so I'm not sure how I would actually go about willing myself awake." He was pacing again, hands gesturing. "I don't know if it's even possible, because that's not exactly the kind of thing people are able to research if they don't work for secretly insane government labs."

He gave her a searching look that made her feel oddly vulnerable. "If this doesn't end up working, it's not your fault. I've never figured out whether it's your need to problem solve or some super-hero button you don't really like to admit to, but it's not on you if you don't get a win this time."

Fear was the hardest emotion for Kirsten, because it was so tied up in a negative anticipation of the future. She'd never really felt it, but the emotion snaking its way through her now felt suspiciously close. "So you're just giving up?"

"I'm not saying that." He caught her arm, sounding exasperated and sad at the same time. "But the failure rate for—"

"No." The sound of her own voice surprised her, furious and shaky and more than a little raw. "I don't _care_ about 'failure rate,' or neural pathways, or whatever nice safe excuses there are for this not to work. I flatly refuse to go back out there without you, so unless we figure out how to get your eyes open then we're both stuck in this mental landscape together until our brains waste away into nothing."

With every word, Cameron was looking more and more shocked.  In the background, a conversation was pouring in from the outside world. “Her heart rate is spiking again.”

“Any higher than before?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep an eye on it and let me know.”

Cameron cocked an ear as if he could hear it too. “What was that?”

“The techs, likely muffled by the lid you’re under,” Kirsten snapped. “That means you’re regaining consciousness enough that your hearing’s returning.” She forced herself to breathe. “Now we just have to figure out what to do next.”

He still looked stunned. “I take it they haven’t been hearing your whole half of the conversation.”           

“Of course not.” She narrowed her eyes at him, offended that he would even need to question whether or not she’d taken care of that. “Maggie uses you to emotionally manipulate me often enough. She knows exactly why I’m in here, but I’d rather avoid giving her any more ammunition if I can help it.”

Cameron was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. “She’s been using me to emotionally manipulate you?”

“Yes. Nothing else is nearly as effective, and she clearly understands how to best utilize her resources.” To Kirsten’s horror, the shakiness was coming back. His implied use of the word love could apply to a friendly or even familial relationship, if he’d even meant that much by showing her that particular memory. What she was saying, however, was quickly edging into much more dangerous territory. “Now can you please stop stating the obvious so we can focus on the problem?”

Cameron opened and closed his mouth a few times, clearly trying and failing to find words. In Kirsten’s ear, the outside world came back. “Now his heart rate is spiking. It’s not in dangerous territory yet, but….”

“We don’t want it to get there, gotcha. Kirsten, is there any….”

There had probably been more to what Camille was saying, but Kirsten stopped paying attention when Cameron leaned forward and kissed her.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Kirsten had always considered kissing a mildly pleasant physical activity, not necessarily bad but much less stimulating than the sex that inevitably followed. There were natural risks, much as there were in any team activity – your partner's skill, focus and involvement was unfortunately a major factor in whether or not the experience was successful – but the endorphin rush was exponentially larger than with normal exercise.

Cameron's kiss ... she couldn't think. It wasn't the physical sensations – she was used to those, and while Cameron was reasonably talented there was no way that alone could be enough to stop her heart like this. Despite the urgency of his kiss he was still gentle, his hands cradled the sides of her face as if he was holding something precious.  She felt like she was falling, each spark  of sensation carried on a rush of need, affection, tenderness, and ... and....

Cameron pulled back, able to both see and feel the mixture of worry and hope in his eyes. "Should I be apologizing for that?" he murmured, voice rough.

"No." It took effort to remind herself to breathe. "You definitely don't need to do that."

Suddenly, Camille's voice was back in her ear. "Kirsten? As glad as I am that you're still capable of responding, that actually wasn't a direct answer to anything I've asked you for the last few minutes."

Shit. "Sorry. I'm fine." Cameron's questioning expression disappeared as he started to step back, but she reached out and grabbed his shirt before he could move away completely. "I didn't actually hear what you asked me. I accidentally touched something in a traumatic hospital dream and got caught up."

"That didn't exactly sound—" Camille cut herself off, and when she spoke again the obvious disbelief in her voice had disappeared. "Gotcha. Trauma can be very distracting. We keep getting spikes in yours and Cameron's heart rates. Nothing dangerous, but we just wanted to make sure everything's okay."

She winced, leaning her forehead against Cameron's shoulder and silently cursing the invention of heart monitors. He chuckled softly, pressing a kiss against the side of her hair. It was a simple gesture that was far more wonderful than it logically had any right to be.

Kirsten took a few steadying breaths, making absolutely certain her voice was even. "The car accident dream comes up a lot. That's probably what's triggering the heart rate spikes." Cameron's mental form had no natural scent - they were in his head, and people were rarely aware of what they smelled like - and she was surprised to realize how much she missed it. "I'm getting closer to finding Cameron, though."

"Good." Camille's voice was gentle. "We'll be here if you need us."

She took a few more breaths, shifting her voice back to the strictly mental one. "Camille?" When there was no response, she lifted her head to look up at Cameron. "Sorry." Her lips quirked upward. "Though that was technically your fault. You knocked me back into physicality."

His expression, however, was suddenly serious. "You're sure this isn't emotional bleed from me?" he asked quietly, voice almost hesitant. "I've been crazy about you for a really long time, and I don't want the fact that you're in my head to make you think you're okay with something you really aren't."

She looked at him, the self-doubt of a boy whose parents had forgotten  him mingling with that of a girl whose father abandoned her. He was far better at pretending than she was, but being genuinely wanted was a hard thing for both of them to imagine.

"I heard your voice in my head," Kirsten said softly. "I even saw you, sometimes, little flashes of memory that my brain wouldn't push back into the distant past like it was supposed to. It kept trying to put you where you belonged, even though you weren't there anymore, and so every second was a fresh reminder of the hole in my life where you were supposed to be." She swallowed. "It was constant pain, but even that was better than you not being there at all."

Cameron looked like he was desperately fighting the urge to hug her. "I'm so sorry," he breathed. "I didn't...."

"I know." It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to close the distance between them, pressing her cheek against his neck, and Cameron wrapped his arms around her as if that was all he'd been waiting for. Maybe it had been. "I think we might be reading each other's emotions and intentions, though."

She felt him smile against her hair. "Probably what's making this slightly less terrifying than it would be out in the real world."

Kirsten curled her fingers in the back of his shirt. "I still wanted this, though. Even when I didn't know how to ask for it."

He tightened his arms around her. "Me, too." Then he pulled back, holding her face and pressing a kiss against her forehead before stepping away completely. "And as much as I want to continue this conversation, I think now would be a really good time for you to get out of my head."

She bit back the instinctive protest, knowing he was talking about the science. If he woke up with her still in his head, it would most likely have a similar effect as being yanked out of a stitch rather than bouncing herself.

"Or worse." Cameron said, then furrowed his brow when he realized she hadn't actually spoken. "Yeah, we're definitely doing a minor telepathy/empathy thing right now." His expression went soft. "I'm starting to think I'm gonna miss that."

Her chest warmed as she smirked at him. "It's for the best. Imagine how much crazier we would end up driving each other."  Then the humor left her, and she got another good grip on his shirt. "What's your plan?" Her throat tightened. "Because if it's going to take awhile, I could stay for part of it."

Cameron shook his head. "Hopefully, it won't take long enough for it to be an issue. I'm pretty sure the concentration I'm using to talk to you like this has already started the process, and once it gets far enough along I don't think I can actually stop it." He covered her hand with his. "Go. Barring some horrible medical surprise neither of us know about, I promise you I'll be right behind you."

And there was still a little of that fear inside her, a chill that no amount of warmth could shake. "If you wake up, how likely is it that you'll remember this?"

He hesitated, expression going serious again. "This probably qualifies as an imagined scenario, which gets recorded in the neurons pretty much identically to memories. It's tougher if this counts as a dream, but the fact that I'm going to wake up abruptly rather than go through an REM cycle will probably help with that, too."

Kirsten felt his hand tighten on hers. "But you're not sure," she said, so he wouldn't have to. When he shook his head, she nodded. "Okay, then. If you don't remember, we'll just have to figure out how to say this all over again."

She leaned forward and kissed him, gentle and slow, as if that would somehow keep her from having to movie on into the next moment. Then she stepped away from him, chin up as she reached for her keypad.

He smiled at her, even though his eyes were wet. "We really have to change that password."

She smiled back at him, her own eyes filling as she typed in the words that would send her away from him.


	7. Chapter 7

Kirsten barely gave herself the chance to open her eyes before she was struggling her way out of the tank. Camille and Linus hurried over, expressions worried, but before they could say anything she used them as an impromptu ladder to help her get to the ground as quickly as possible. Then she hurried over to where Cameron was and lifted the lid.

No movement, but she'd known that was the most likely scenario. No matter how much she'd hoped, she hadn't actually expected it. That wasn't why she was here.

Kirsten leaned close, hand curved around his neck so that he could feel the contact. "Focus on the sound of my voice." She cleared her throat, knowing she couldn't let her voice crack. Not out here. "We know your hearing is coming back, and with the lid up you should be able to hear it clearly now. Concentrate on the individual words, on understanding them. Let yourself follow them out."

Behind her, Rogers was getting closer. "This is absolutely absurd. She's just trying to cover for the fact that—"

The rest of the sentence cut off in a groan of pain, then the sound of a body hitting the floor. "Oh, I'm so sorry about that," Camille said. "He must have tripped and fallen crotch first right into my knee. I can't imagine how that could have happened."

Kirsten leaned closer to Cameron. "I know I'm rushing you, but you know I'm not very good at being patient so I'm not going to apologize for that." The steadiness she'd tried so hard to hold onto was slipping away, so she lowered her voice for Cameron's ears alone. "Besides, you promised you'd be right behind me, because you know if you don't open your eyes I'm just going to try and go right back in there. So you'll save us both a lot of trouble if you just wake up."

She made herself pull away as she felt Camille and Linus come up behind her. "I'm sorry," Camille said quietly, laying a hand against Kirsten's back.

"Nothing to be sorry about." Kirsten had to clear her throat again, eyes stinging. "Cameron and I just overestimated the simplicity of the problem. All I have to do is go back in there and—"

"No." Maggie cut in, coming down the stairs. "Once was risky enough. I won't authorize it twice."

Linus stepped forward. "The absolute refractory period is less of an issue with a living brain, because we didn't have to supply as much energy. As long as we make sure it happens today there shouldn't be a—"

  Maggie cut him off, too. "No." She turned to Kirsten. "There are some things you can't fix. No matter how much you want to."

"Cameron is trapped in his own head, trying to do something that no research even exists to help him with," Kirsten snapped. "The 'fixing' will happen whether I go in there or not – this is Cameron we're talking about – but if he has run into some sort of problem it's ridiculous to leave him in their alone without any kind of—"

There was a groan behind her, then an achingly familiar voice. "Shhh. My head hurts."

Kirsten whipped back around to see Cameron, eyes half open. His hand half lifted, fingers catching on her sleeve, and she pulled away only so she could wrap her hand around his. "Welcome back," she whispered.

"Hey, Stretch." His lips curved upward, just a little, then melted into confusion as he looked around the room. "Why am I in the lab?"

"Don't worry about that now," Kirsten soothed, firmly ignoring the twinge in her chest. She knew the biology well enough to know that amnesia was common, in this stage if not permanently. It was enough that she had him back. "We need to get you back to the hospital."

"Okay." He nodded, clearly already drifting away. Still, he squeezed her hand. "Gonna sleep now."

"You do that," Kirsten said, voice thick. "I'll be here when you wake up."

She didn't force herself to let go until he'd already slipped back into what she knew would be a much more temporary state of unconsciousness, letting the techs load him into the ambulance. It was almost as hard not to get in the back of the ambulance with him, Cameron's residual protective instincts combining with her own need to take care of him, but she needed to change out of the catsuit and maybe pack a bag.

As she headed back to the locker room, Linus stopped her with an entirely unexpected hug. "Thank you," he whispered.

She put her own arms around him, the memory of Cameron's ability to care making it easier than it normally would have been. "I missed him, too."

"I know." Linus pulled back, smiling even though his eyes were wet, then leaned close again for a whisper that wouldn't be picked up by the cameras. "Camille said she's hoping you two pick Vegas for the wedding."

Kirsten didn't blush, a fact that she found extremely useful at that particular moment. When Linus moved she could see Camille over his shoulder, and the other girl just winked and tilted her head toward the locker rooms.

Kirsten hurried to follow the suggestion. She needed to get to Cameron.

000

Once she'd finished changing, she'd come to the conclusion that it would take too much mental effort to make herself drive anywhere but straight to the hospital. She forced herself not to run to the car, which was good because Maggie was waiting for her in the parking garage. "You know they'll use this against you," she said.

Kirsten's fingers tightened around her keys. "Where you'll just use it."

Maggie sighed. "I'm not the monster you and Cameron make me out to me. I let you stitch him, didn't I?"

"Because you knew you couldn't stop me, and this way you could at least control it." Still, there were worse things she could have done, and Kirsten tilted her head in acknowledgement of that fact. "Pretending he isn't my biggest weakness doesn't stop him from being one."

Maggie's eyes grew distant, like she was remembering something from years before. "The weak don't survive in this world."

"Oh, I never said I was weak." Kirsten moved past Maggie, getting into her car. Then she hesitated, looking at the older woman. "Ed may have died to protect me, but I prefer a more violent approach when it comes to protecting the people who are mine. Something for your bosses to keep in mind."

Then she shut the door and drove to the hospital. Cameron could yell at her about it later.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your response to this fic, guys. I've been absolutely blown away by it. *hugs all of you*

Cameron drifted in and out of consciousness for the next 48 hours, though his performance on the doctors' various tests improved steadily enough that the chances of permanent brain damage were almost non-existent. Kirsten was there for all of them, though once Cameron's residual protectiveness had faded she'd allowed Camille to push her out the door for a shower, a change of clothes, and a three-hour nap in an actual bed.

Kirsten had then immediately returned to the hospital, grilling Camille and Linus to make sure she hadn't missed anything. The nurses would have given her a report – after several careful reminders of visiting hours the night before, they'd given up and offered to bring her a cot – but it would have lacked the personal details that were most important.

She and Cameron talked, during the stretches when he was awake. They were mostly simple conversations – progress on the hit-and-run case, the deadline Maggie had given him to fix the tech, or the terrors of hospital food. He never asked about or even alluded to the fact that she'd stitched him, and never even hinted about anything that had happened during the stitch.

Kirsten stayed silent as well, telling herself that it wasn't time yet. She should wait until his brain had healed, until she could be absolutely sure whether or not any memory of what had happened was still in his brain.

She worried, sometimes, that he'd been affected by the emotions she'd likely been projecting at him, but the fact that he'd been worried about the opposite happening made that theory seem less than logical. If he didn't have feelings for her, he wouldn't have wondered if she'd been influenced by them. 

If he didn't remember admitting them ... it would make things harder. But nothing was as hard as not having them there at all.

She didn't bother trying to sleep that night, laptop open in her lap as she checked Cameron's medical records one more time. It was almost a ritual, by this point, soothing in the same way that listening to his breathing was.

"Hey, Sunshine. I'm pretty sure nighttime is for sleeping."

Kirsten looked up at the sound of Cameron's voice, immediately setting the computer aside and moving right next to his bed. "Which means you should be taking your own advice." She smiled down at him, hands resting on the railing between them. "I'm not the one still recovering from a coma."

"All that means is I've been getting much more sleep lately than you have." His own smile flickered as he reached up, covering one of her hands with his own. "And that no one's been around to make you take care of yourself."

"People have tried. It doesn't tend to end well for them." Chest tightening, Kirsten shifted her grip so that their fingers were linked together. She'd told herself she should wait, but she'd never been good at that. S urely there was no harm in taking something as small as this.

It was enough, though, that all the air seemed to leave Cameron's lungs in a rush. He looked up at her, his eyes searching. "I've been having these dreams," he said finally, sounding almost hesitant.

Her breath caught. "What kind of dreams?"

"You risked your life, and your brain, to stitch me using broken tech." He let out a breath. "Which I would have never let you do, by the way."

"Too bad." She couldn't keep the remembered pain out of her voice. "You weren't there to stop me."

His fingers tightened around hers, voice rough. "So it really did happen."

She nodded, eyes stinging. No more waiting. "All of it."

Cameron squeezed his own eyes shut, then lifted their joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss against the back of hers. When he looked back up at her again, his gaze held so much of his heart in it that it was almost like she could feel his emotions again. "I'm desperately, stupidly in love with you," he murmured, voice thick. "Did I tell you that?"

"No." She swept her free hand across her suddenly wet eyes, swamped by too many feelings to even begin to be able to put any of them into words. "Cameron, I ... You know...."

When she floundered, he just smiled up at her. "It's okay. We've got plenty of time." His thumb stroked the side of her hand. "Just so long as we're still at the kissing stage."

Kirsten leaned forward and touched her lips to Cameron's, his mouth opening under hers like it had been waiting. Somehow, the emotions were still just as intense out in the real world, a current that made even the gentlest brush of lips feel like a wonder.

When they broke apart, the awed look in his eyes made her throat tighten. "Now sleep," she whispered. "I'll still be here when you wake up."

"You first." He patted the space next to him in the bed. "If we're careful of the wires, we should both be able to fit."

The thought was incredibly tempting, but .... Her brow lowered. "That's not exactly being discreet."

He smiled a little. "You stitched me back to consciousness, then as far as I can tell have barely left my hospital room for two days. I think discreet is going to be a relative thing when it comes to the two of us."

Her own lips curved upward as she thought about the threat she'd delivered through Maggie. Cameron was _definitely_ going to yell at her about it once he found out. "True."

Careful not to disturb any of the tubes or wires, Kirsten settled in against his side. She laid her head against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of his skin as her hand rested over his heartbeat. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the world was right again. "Thank you for waking up," she whispered.

Cam pressed his lips against her hair. "I promised you I would."

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my weekly posts and original short fiction on my [blog](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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